


in the silence after

by eluvians



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Angst, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Kings Rising Spoilers, M/M, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Kings Rising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 04:19:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6104694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eluvians/pseuds/eluvians
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After retaking Ios, Damen confronts the Regent. He neither knows what he wants nor likes what he gets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the silence after

**Author's Note:**

> After thinking my fanfic writing days well and truely over, Kings Rising and the Captive Prince trilogy came along. I wanted to write something cute and fluffy and this came out instead.
> 
> More seriously:  
> This fic discusses canon-compliant UNDERAGE SEXUAL ABUSE in ways that are (again, canonically) INSENSITIVE to the victim and the crime. I've thought a lot about how I thought Laurent would react to Damen knowing, and this is what I came up with. Given the events from canon, I trust you as the reader **to decide whether or not this is within your trigger limits**. Please let me know if I have misstepped in any way, and I will do everything to fix it, or if there are any more tags I missed. This work is unbeta'd, so please point out any mistakes.

The door to the Regent’s cell was locked.

The guard posted was staring at him, though he was trying desperately not to show it. 

Damen had been standing at the door for what felt like hours now. His mind twisted and turned, unsettled. He should have been thinking of what he wanted from this. He thought, instead, of Laurent. Thirteen, yellow hair bright against his white mourning clothes, standing sentinel as mourners gathered to view their fallen prince. Thirteen, with his uncle standing behind him, hand pressed to steady Laurent’s shaking shoulders, the only person left to share in Laurent’s grief.

Rage bubbled, like lava under his skin. _He could have—he should have—_

Damen closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. _It was done_ , he told himself. It was for him, now, to—

He found himself unable to finish that sentence. Bring justice? Justice was Laurent’s to give. Ask why, how? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

_Enough._

He motioned for the guard to open the door. The relief was palpable as the guard hurried to unlock the cell. 

Unlike Jokaste at Karthas, there was no political incentive for the Regent in comfort. The Regent’s guilt was all but assured, and his cell was a reflection of that fact. Built into the deepest bedrock of the limestone foundations of Ios, the cell was small, dank and dark. The only light came from a small, flickering torch near the door, illuminating the shadowy figure at the back of the cell.

The Regent knelt, hands chained and fixed to an iron link on the floor, facing Damen. His dark hair, usually pristine, was matted and unkempt. His beard was long, longer than Damen had ever seen it. His broad shoulders were stooped, his shoulders taunt. He looked up at Damen’s entrance, a slow smile edging across his face.

He recalled his first impression of the Regent, that he didn’t resemble Laurent in the slightest. His stomach turned at the thought, now.

“Damainos of Akleios.” The Regent’s dark eyes were considering as he gazed up at Damen. “Tell me, does my nephew know you have come to see me?”

Damen said nothing. It was the first time, he knew, that the Regent had seen anyone since he and Laurent retook Ios. Damen remembered his promise on the floor of the Kingsmeet: _I will be the last thing you see._ His mind was frantic, unfocused, as a hundred ways of killing the man before him flickered across his mind. 

The silence stretched between them, endless, before Damen broke it, helpless not to.

“You touched him.” It wasn’t a question; it was burning him up from the inside.

The Regent said nothing, his gaze unwavering.

“Your nephew. You had him kneel for you.”

More silence.

“ _Thirteen—_ ” Damen almost choked on the word. “Have you _nothing to say?_ ”

He did not know why he had come, but he needed something, anything.

There was a long pause before the Regent spoke. “Tell me, Damainos,” said the Regent, his eyes fixed on Damen, “that you do not see the appeal?”

Rage, white hot and bubbling, greyed the edges of his vision. He lashed out with a snarl, his fist an unstoppable force as it struck the Regent’s cheekbone. The Regent’s head whipped back with the force of the blow and he teetered off balance before righting himself, head swinging low.

“I am _nothing_ like you. Laurent—” He broke off, unwilling to continue, to let this man touch what he had with Laurent.

When the Regent looked up he was smiling again, blood in his teeth. “But I think we do. Laurent was a lovely boy then, too. Tell me, does he still attend you, after? I spent time enforcing good habits, it would be a shame—”

Hot fury was bringing the world into perfect focus. “ _Silence—_ ”

The smile turned savage. “I did more than touch him, Damainos. He cried, at first, when I fucked him—”

 _Why did he come, why did he come?_ “Enough—”

“—but then, as time passed, he eased into it—looser, eager—”

Damen’s hands were around the Regent’s neck before he even registered the movement. He tightened the grip, hot blood singing at the shuddering breath he could feel under his fingertips.

The smile was still in place, blood gathering at the corners of his mouth. “Go on, Damainos,” the Regent rasped, voice breaking under the pressure of Damen’s hands. “Kill me. Fulfil your promise.”

The world snapped back into focus. He broke his grip, almost stumbling backwards away from the Regent. The Regent fell forward, hands clutching at his throat as he coughed. The wound from Kastor’s knife throbbed, mostly healed. _He wants this,_ he realised. The Regent had one last play. Death, at this point, was the Regent’s only escape.

Damen wouldn’t— _couldn’t_ —give him the satisfaction. 

His voice trembled as he spoke. “You execution is for Laurent to give. I won’t give you the courtesy of dying by anyone else’s hand.”

Rather than listen to another word from the Regent’s poisonous mouth, Damen turned, exiting the cell, leaving the slumped, coughing figure hunched over in the back of the call. 

“Gag him,” he instructed the guard. “He speaks to no one.”

“Yes, Exalted.”

Damen steeled himself, and walked away from the cell. He regretted coming here at all.

As he turned the corridor to the stairs that led out of the cells, a part of him was unsurprised to find Laurent leaning against the entrance to the stairwell, the line of his body tense with controlled calm. He was a vision of gold, white and blue, not a lace out of place. The feeling growing in Damen’s chest was simple, in the face of Laurent’s heart-stopping beauty.

Laurent eyed Damen considering, eyes flicking from Damen’s fists to his face. “I asked you not to come.”

Damen said nothing, could say nothing.

Laurent raised a golden brow. His calm demeanour was belied by the sharp tension of his shoulders. “And?” His voice was cool, relaxed. “Are you satisfied?”

Again, Damen was silent.

When Laurent smiled, it was ice cold. Damen’s heart clenched. “Oh, he spared you the details, did he? How thoughtless.” His voice, too, was cold: calculated. Damen, so attuned to Laurent’s moods, dreaded his next words. “Don’t worry, I believe I remember it clearly enough—”

The world went very still. “No.”

“—how it felt to be helpless and alone, at thirteen, with no one to turn to when—“

“Laurent, enough—” 

“—he came into my rooms for the first time, his grieving nephew, whom he wanted to _fuck._ ”

Laurent pushed himself off the wall, approaching Damen with all the grace of a leopard stalking its prey. “What did you think my uncle was going to say?” The first tendrils of anger threaded his voice before Lauren’s perfect control visibly reasserted itself. His next words were ice, each lodging itself firmly into Damen’s heart. “That he was sorry? That he wanted forgiveness?” Fissures were appearing in his composure, like cracks in stone; the clench of his fist, the shortness of breath. “I was nothing but a boy in a long line of boys. Nicaise, Aimeric. My uncle regrets nothing.” Laurent paused, the silence deafening. 

“My uncle regrets nothing,” he repeated. “Not me. Not Auguste. Not my father.”

When Damen stepped forward, the movement was unconscious. He approached Laurent with caution, wary of the fragile tension of the moment. Laurent stood still, as if carved from stone, his only tell in his quick, sharp breaths. Damen, close enough to touch now, slid his hands into Laurent’s, feeling Laurent’s hands loosen like an iceberg cracking away from a glacier. He drew Laurent’s hands up, turning his palms face up. He pressed a gentle kiss into each one, gathering then, after, to place them over his heart.

“I’m sorry.” The words were quiet, soft in the silence. He felt, rather than saw, Laurent react. “I’m sorry for coming down here. I’m sorry for what happened to you.” _I’m sorry for the part I played in this._

Laurent’s eyes closed, but he did not draw his hands away. Something inside must have snapped in that moment because in the next, Damen was hearing words he never thought to hear. “I never thought I would have—I would never deserve—”

The kiss happened because Damen was helpless not to, unable to hear the end of Laurent’s sentence. It was sweet, bittersweet, the past stretching between them, tangible in that moment. He could feel the tension in Laurent’s body, the urge to pull away. His grip on Laurent’s hands tightened unconsciously as he broke the kiss, staying close. Laurent’s head dropped.

“I said once,” Damen’s voice was thick with feeling, “that I would court you with all the grace and courtesy that you deserve.” _You deserve this. You deserve me._

Laurent, head tilted away, was silent for a moment. Damen’s heart was thudding in his chest. He could feel it, drumming against the hand that clutched Laurent’s hands to his chest. He wondered if Laurent could feel it. The tension crested.

Laurent slowly, painstakingly, lifted his head. His answer, when it came, was simple in a thousand ways that Laurent was never simple.

“Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
